On June 21, 2017, President Trump signed Executive Order 13802, which amended the Fair Pay and Safe Workplaces Order originally issued by President Obama. The amendment effectively eliminated transparency requirements that had obligated federal contractors to disclose violations of labor and employment laws before receiving government contracts. Rather than invoking new statutory authority, the order simply revoked existing disclosure mandates that contractors had been required to fulfill through the Department of Labor, fundamentally weakening the informational foundation upon which federal procurement decisions could be made.

The direct beneficiaries of this change were federal contractors with histories of labor violations, wage and hour infractions, safety breaches, or discrimination complaints. Workers and job applicants lost the mechanism by which their employment grievances could influence whether companies received taxpayer-funded work. Federal agencies lost access to consolidated violation records that had previously informed contractor selection, meaning agencies could award contracts without knowing the full employment compliance record of bidding companies. Taxpayers lost visibility into whether their tax dollars were funding businesses with documented patterns of worker mistreatment.

This action represented an early deregulatory move that would accelerate throughout the Trump administrations, establishing a pattern of reducing corporate transparency obligations. The subsequent years brought additional restrictions on disclosure and enforcement, from tariff policies that obscured the costs borne by American consumers to trade measures that complicated price visibility. The removal of labor violation disclosures specifically contradicted the later emphasis on truthful advertising and consumer protection seen in subsequent executive orders like those addressing made-in-America claims and fraud prevention, revealing an inconsistent application of transparency principles depending on whether business or consumer interests were at stake.

No major legal challenges successfully blocked the amendment during its initial implementation, though labor advocates and civil rights organizations protested the reversal. Congressional Democrats introduced measures to restore the disclosure requirements, but these faced Republican opposition in a divided legislature.